Waste site fears - People’s health must be monitored

DESPITE repeated assurances that incinerators and waste sites are not hazardous, fears will be fanned by revelations that Ireland has put no system in place to monitor the health of people living near such sites.

That is a claim one might expect to hear from the anti-incinerator lobby. That it comes from the director general of the Environmental Protection Agency makes the situation all the more worrying.

In a letter to the Department of Health, EPA director general Dr Mary Kelly admitted last year that the “Irish health information systems cannot support routine monitoring of the health of people living near waste sites.”

Her words ring out after Indavar Ireland received draft licences to operate a 93 million hazardous waste incinerator in Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, and an 85m non-hazardous waste incinerator in Duleek, Co Meath.

Disgracefully, no moves have yet been taken to put health monitoring systems in place. No wonder people near incinerator and dump sites are worried.